The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is launching two new Internet resources to help physicians make matches more quickly and to help patients navigate the world of transplantation.
UNET, which is scheduled to go online later this month, will be accessible only to physicians and other transplant professionals. It is designed to help physicians match donors to recipients faster and more efficiently than previously and, it is hoped, eliminate many of the telephone calls and faxes that have been required to coordinate organ donation and allocation. The system is geared to offer physicians and organ transplant centers "an unprecedented, real-time access to the latest organ transplant information," UNOS said in a statement (www.unos.org/newsroom/archive_newsrelease_19990909_txliving.htm).
The patient site, Transplant Living, has already been posted (www.unos.org/patients). "Transplant Living offers patients and their families a single, comprehensive source for everything they want, and need to know, to handle the often tough decisions involved in obtaining an organ transplant," UNOS said. One of its resources, Transplant 101 (www.unos.org/patients/101.htm), includes a step-by-step introduction to the transplantation process, including information on financing transplants, local support groups, instructions on how to get on waiting lists, and experiences from transplant recipients, professionals, and relatives of organ donors.
Another section of the consumer site, Transplant Patient DataSource (www.unos.org/patients/data.htm), provides the latest statistics on survival rates, the size of waiting lists and waiting times, and the current supply of donated organs nationally, by state, and by transplant centers. Data will be more up-to-date than previously available information. Figures posted by UNOS this month reflected data that was available through late May.
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